Design for a stage set of an imperial garden with an enfilade of trees and a fortified building in the distance

Details

Fabrizio Galliari (Andorno 1709-1790 Treviglio)
Design for a stage set of an imperial garden with an enfilade of trees and a fortified building in the distance
inscribed 'M' (partly faded)
traces of pencil, pen and grey ink, grey and blue wash, double black ink framing lines
10 3/8 x 14¾ in. (26.2 x 37.4 cm.)

Provenance

with Yvonne Tan Bunzl, London, 1971.
L Houthakker (L. 3893).
with Hazlitt, Gooden & Fox, London, 1991, where acquired by the present owner.

Literature

P. Fuhring, Design into art: Drawings for architecture and ornament: The Lodewijk Houthakker collection, London, 1989, II, p. 616, fig. 909.

Exhibited

's-Hertogenbosch, Noordbrabants Museum, and Amsterdam, Toneelmuseum, De achtergrond belicht. Ontwerpen voor het theater 1580-1850, 1976, no. 26.

Special notice

This lot is offered without reserve.

Lot Essay

Galliari was from a family of artists who moved to Milan to train with his brother, Bernardino (1707-1794). This drawing of a stage set was for the opera, Montezuma in Berlin first performed in 1755. It was about the conquest of Mexico and it was composed by Carl Heinrich Graun (1704-1759) and the libretto was by Frederick the Great (1712-1786), King of Prussia. The present composition was for Act I, Scene I of the opera and corresponds to the direction 'Three big roads lined with palm trees in the imperial garden'.

More from Old Master and British Drawings

View All